I got my full ride to Ave Maria! No stipend though, apparently....

If anyone has any suggestions of books to read (or places in the Summa) that concentrate on man's love for God, not as a practical meditational thing, but really delving into the meaning of it, please let me know. Thanks (Thesis- panic-time!)

Questions I asked myself while driving past the post office today:
If you mail something to your local post office, do they just open it when it gets there? Do they cancel the stamp?
If you pay by weight, what happens when you ship a big box of helium? Do they pay you?

Applications are all in. Now what? Oh, right: the 87 other top priorities I've been neglecting whilst I worried about law school.

Chappa-licious!

"The GOP team working with the White House to win confirmation of conservative Samuel Alito is putting out a warning to Alito's Democratic critics: Question his ethics and character at your own peril. In their sights: Sens. Edward Kennedy and Joe Biden.
'We're absolutely prepared to have an ethics debate with Teddy Kennedy,' says one indsider who mentioned the 'C' word: Chappaquiddick."
-USNews & World Report, Dec. 19

Break out the noisemakers!

Philosophus has just blogged his 500th blog!

165 this time around. 93rd percentile. Good, but not great. oh well. Ave here I come. Merry Christmas!

recant

Dammit. this is what happens when you date someone smarter than you. All your pet theories are short-lived. What took me over an hour to write he tore apart in ten seconds by pointing out that what I just posted can't follow because not only do animal populations not increase exponentially they remain the same overall size throughout unless they have room to spread out which most do not. Dammit. Well, I grudgingly sacrifice my theory on the altar of truth. Dammit.

Who's your daddy?

Where to begin? I have so many objections to Darwin. One is that he never shows that what he claims is even possible, much less probable much less unquestionable, namely, that a mutation that happens to be useful could become the norm and consistently passed down with few exceptions from generation to generation, and secondly, that that helpful mutation is so much more helpful than other mutations or even the old way that it beats out everyone else. For example, a big pack of wolves: most are the same, a few are born with slightly bigger tails- I don't know. But all the parents of that generation looked the same. It's only 3 out of 800 that had the slightly bigger tails. Then, say, 600 of those 800 cubs grow up (the rest die as cubs). Let's say those 3 mutated-tail cubs are among those 600. However, of those 600, maybe 2 are born with a mutation (and by mutation I mean, something different from their parents) of having especially white fur, another 3 have especially dark fur, etc. But these are freak occurences. Again, maybe another 1 or 2 have abnormally good eyesight, another 2 or 3 have abonormally bad eyesight, and perhaps so forth till about 40 or 50 of the 600 who made it to maturity have some sort of abnormality, be it beneficial, harmful, or indifferent. That sounds pretty reasonable, right?
The assumption here is that- and must be that- starting with this generation, be it ever so gradual, these slight little mutations are important enough to actually cause the especially white wolves (let's say it's snowy weather) or the bigger-tailed wolves or whatever, to survive longer and produce young. But wait! There's more!
Not only do these slightly different wolves have to reproduce, but they have to reproduce children who inherit the same slight trait that they themselves only got by a freak occurence. And these cubs in turn have to mate with other freak cubs etc ad infinutm to affect any change. And under Darwin's theory, there can't be an ongoing coexistence of mini-breeds of freak-wolves who have their advantage due to different mutations; i.e., it's either the long-tails or the white-furs, or the sharp-sights, etc etc etc, but no more than one. In other words, different mutations can't give equal advantage (ie, equal survival rates) to a group. Not only does the, say, white fur have to be an advantage, but an advantage consistently passed down, and not only that, but it has to be significantly more advantageous than the freak cubs born with bigger tails, which, while helpful, don't make the cut. Darwin says that any advantage, no matter how slight, will win out given enough time. I do not see that that follows. And of course, the biggest objection that I can think of at the moment is, well, it's twofold, and I've mentioned them already but I want to drive home how absurd it is, that
1. Cub A is born with mutation X. Siblings do not have mutation X. Maybe one other cub (Cub B) in the pack has mutation X. Same with mutations Y, Z, etc. Of course, these will not be the majority, even put together, because if we proceed from experience we see that children are usually born in the image of their parents; not that all kids are slightly mutated but it's so slight we don't notice. Cuz that's a different can of worms but if anyone wants to duke that out I'd be more than happy. Anyway, so that mutation happens to be beneficial and Cub A grows and has his own cubs. Chances are he did not mate with that one other cub in the pack that had X. He has 6 cubs, maybe one of which has the same mutation. meanwhile, the rest of the pack is expanding almost exponentially (granted a pack can't actually grow like that; only the Grimms can, but you see it's like that in nature). Keep in mind, it's only been one generation, and while Cubs A & B have had about 6 cubs each, so has every non-mutated member of the pack. Which means, that with every successive generation, those cubs born with mutation X, while possibly more and more in number each generation, but less & less percentagewise, will have to have a bigger and bigger edge over the non-mutated or differently-mutated cubs in order to even eventually phase them out. And remember, this "accumualation" in concentration of mutation X is so gradual that it can barely be noticed from one generation to the next, yet somehow it's responsible for, in every generation, a decided advantage to the Xers. And it DOES have to be a decided advantage in every generation in order for this to work. If someone wants to argue with me, please address this, and don't come to me with "but we know that evolution is true to some extent because yada yada yada" unless your defense actually relates to what I'm talking about. I really would love to know the answer to this.
I have more to say but I'm spent.

I was a Darwinist until I read Darwin.

Joel's father knows a lawyer who represented, pro bono, a couple of young men who were clearly guilty of bombing a Jewish temple. This is his story.
While the prosecutor was examining the key witness, the lawyer (Mr. Feil's friend) kept scooting his chair little by little to the side until he was at the prosecutor's table, at which point he starts going through the prosecutor's notes. The prosecutor notices this and gets livid. The judge gets livid. The lawyer apologizes and returns to his own table. The prosec. continues questioning the witness. The lawyer, once again scoots his chair over to the other side. This happens four times. Each time the prosecutor goes into a rage, the judge bangs his gavel, "Contempt of court! Contempt of court!" Finally, the jury is dismissed and the judge takes the 2 lawyers into his chambers. When the jury is brought back again, they see a chalk line drawn down the middle of the courtroom. The prosec. once again continues his examination of the key witness and the defense lawyer stands up and chucks his chair across the chalk line. The judge loses it.
"CONTEMPT OF COURT! CONTEMPT OF COURT!" Gavel banging, judge roaring, prosecutor shrieking, defense attorney maintaining his innocence-
"MY ASS DIDN'T CROSS THE LINE! MY ASS DIDN'T CROSS THE LINE!"
"CONTEMPT OF COURT! CONTEMPT OF COURT!"
2 weeks later when the trial was over (the defendants, by the way, were acquitted and their lawyer did a month in jail for contempt of court) the jury were interviewed about the key witness, whose testimony should have put the defendants in prison.
They didn't remember a single word of the testimony.

I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone it, People Like Me!

A fellow TACer and good friend's father went to Notre Dame Law. We'll call this good friend X. At my & Nick's prompting, X told his father he had 2 friends who wanted to meet with him & talk about getting into ND Law School. So, X's father suggested we come over to watch the ND/Tennessee game last Saturday. We went to their house, X introduced us, and X's father immediately begins giving Nick ND literature. The boys go to the kitchen to get some beers & I am left alone with X's father.
"So, what do you want to do when you leave TAC?" he asks me.
Pause.
"... law school..." I say timidly.
It dawns on him. "Oh! YOU'RE the other one!"

The tradition of "dice girls" at the quadrivial trivial pursuit must stop. It's degrading & disgusting & I have a plan but I can't say what it is yet. But I'll give you a hint: pantsuits.

Reality's a Big Fat Bitch

161

I'm waiting for Nick to get back from SD on Monday till we look at our emails to see our LSAT scores. I think it would be better if we saw it at the same time; I also need someone to be there to hold me down when I start bashing my head against a brick wall. So, about a week ago Jaclyn (I don't know if I spelled it right) asked me if I knew yet. "No, I'm waiting till blah blah blah because blah blah blah." "Oh," she said,"Well, sometimes they send it to you in less than three weeks. That's what happened to so & so." "Hmm," says I," all the same, I have to wait until next Monday."
This morning: knock knock "Come in." Jaclyn pokes her head in. "Do you know yet?"
"No. I'm waiting till Monday. I'm trying to avoid even going near anywhere where I can check my email."
"Oh, so do you not want me to tell you if a bunch of other people just got theirs today just now?"
I bury my face back in Toqueville, but it doesn't work and here I am. Nothing in my email yet, praised be God. Thank you anyway, Jaclyn.

I heart the USA

Someone recently told me that the Soviet Union's Anthem was vastly superior to and more grown-up than ours. While I grant the latter, let me point out that "more grown-up" generally means "more boring." For your contrasting pleasure, I shall post both and perhaps you will see why I prefer ours. Ours is unique: one long question whose only point is, is our flag still there? In that question is contained the essence of our country: we came to exist only through great struggle and our youth and immaturity, rather than hindering, give us the vigor we need to sustain ourselves, especially since we're ever-expanding. True, most countries have more history and therefore more instances of struggle for survival, but in 2 centuries, we've packed in plenty. Look at Iwo Jima: four men, weary from battle struggle just to erect our flag. We have strict laws regarding maintenance of our flag and only a very few ACLUesque weirdoes ever question that. Flags symbolize everything by their very nature and having an anthem about a flag, even if it was written by a poet who was merely straining to see if it still waved, is immensely appropriate. It is not often that we symbolize something so powerfully and I can think of no better way to artistically express patriotism than a hope that our flag has not been desecrated or pulled down in the midst of battle.

Unbreakable Union of freeborn republics,
Great Russia has welded forever to stand.
Created in struggle by will of the people,
United and mighty, our Soviet land!

(chorus:)
Sing to the motherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism's triumph lead us on!

Through tempests the sunrays of freedom have cheered us,
Along the great path where Lenin did lead.
Be true to the people, thus Stalin has reared us,
Inspire us to labor and valorous deed!

In the victory of Communism's deathless ideal,
We see the future of our dear land.
And to her fluttering scarlet banner
Selflessly true we always shall stand!

Nice (if you're a dirty commie), but borrrrrrrrring and full of s***. Every country thinks it's unique and noble. But The Star-Spangled Banner makes no outright claims to our land being unique and great, only that it's ours and we love it for that. I've heard the Russians still love this anthem and get emotional, but you get emotional because of your patriotism, not b/c of the song itself, especially if the song isn't very remarkable- for example, in Casablanca the French emigres drowning out the Nazis and the sleazy Frenchwomen who were flirting w/ the Nazis got tears in their eyes and sang loudest of all-maybe people really see value in their own anthems because we can't separate the patriotism from the music, but I'm pretty sure I'd love America's anyway. So here it is. I know there are more verses (Mr. & Mrs. Ferrier both know them all, God bless them), but the first verse suffices.

O, say, can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

I took my LSAT. I don't know how it went. Honestly. I did ok. Maybe well. I'll know in 3 weeks.

The Rest is Silence

There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?

D-Day has arrived.

SPREAD THE WORD!

Please everyone pray like the dickens for me this next week. Next Saturday's the most important, meaningful, and decisive day of my life thus far. Well, maybe 2nd most; I saw Top Gun in a movie theater last night. And that was pretty rad.

I told my mother how to access my blog. I hope that wasn't a mistake.